The Dock is a special part of the Home screen that houses your favorite apps and appears on all pages except for the Today page, which is where your widgets appear. On the other hand, if you wanted to change that, you officially can.
A new free jailbreak tweak dubbed ViewDockOnTodayView by CydiaGeek allows the Dock appear on the Today page with all of your widgets and in addition to all of your regular Home screen pages.
Your iPhone’s Personal Hotspot password is displayed as a string of text in the Settings app, which means anyone can look over your shoulder and figure out your password without you knowing.
A new free jailbreak tweak called MaskedHotspotPass by iOS developer Andreas Henriksson helps to do away with this problem by concealing your Personal Hotspot password from the preferences pane.
Google's AI-powered speaker, called Home, is getting new features announced earlier today during the keynote address at the company's annual conference for developers. Soon, Home owners will be able to stream songs from Apple Music and other apps running on their iPhone, iPad, Mac or Android device via Bluetooth.
Hands-free callingAnd with hands-free calling, customers will be able ask Assistant running on the device to place calls to mobile phones or landlines in the US or Canada for free.
Even better, there’ll be no setup and no need for a phone or additional app.
Visual responsesYet another upcoming enhancement, called visual responses, will let the smart speaker put responses to queries on a supported display, including your iPhone's.
That's right, you’ll be able to see Assistant answers on the biggest screen in your house, whether you're asking “What's on YouTube TV right now?” or “What's on my calendar today?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpnxTXILS4s
Getting visual responses from Home's Assistant on a TV will be even easier with Chromecast.
Bluetooth streamingGoogle is adding Bluetooth support to let Home users enjoy more music, movies and TV shows in apps running on Bluetooth-enabled smartphones, tablets and computers, like Apple Music.
Soundcloud, Deezer and Spotify’s free music offering are coming soon to Home as well. On the video front, they've already added Netflix, and have more partners on the way like HBO NOW, CBS All Access and HGTV.
Reminders, additional countriesYou can now use your Home speaker to schedule new calendar appointments and create reminders (support for adding reminders is coming soon). “Since it’s the same Google Assistant across devices, you’ll be able to get a reminder at home or on the go,” said the firm.
Google provided this brief explanation for proactive notifications:
Conversations can take place in many different ways. Sometimes your Assistant should be the one to start it—so over the next few months, we’re bringing proactive notifications to Google Home.
Google Home is currently available in a few markets, but that's about to change later this year as they expand it to new places, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Japan.
Assistant updatesHands-free calling, adding reminders, Bluetooth streaming and visual responses will all be enabled for Google Home users in the coming months via a free firmware update.
Google Home is powered by Google Assistant (now available as a dedicated iPhone app).
Speaking of Assistant, the AI-powered helper will be rolling out to eligible Android phones in Brazilian Portuguese, French, German and Japanese. By the end of the year, Assistant will support Italian, Korean and Spanish.
Starting today, developers can build conversational apps for the Google Assistant on phones. As a result, you’ll soon be able to not only get help and answers from Google, but also from third party services.
The company currently has 70+ smart home partners backing Assistant across Google Home, Android phones and iPhone, including August locks, TP-Link, Honeywell, Logitech and LG.
During today's keynote address at Google's annual I/O conference for developers, the company announced a trio of smart features powered by machine learning intelligence.
For starters, the app now automatically curates albums for the user.
Even better, Google Photos provides suggestions when sharing photos with others. As a bonus, there's now an Apple Photos-like feature for ordering printed photo books from within the app.
But first, check out the new features for yourself in Google's video embedded below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN_7r0mFf5Y
Sharing suggestionsPhotos now uses Google's machine learning technology to remind you when it's time to share some photos. The app automatically select the right photos and even suggest who you should send them to based on who was in the photos.
All that's left for you to do is review the choices the app's made on your behalf before hitting that Send button. People you're sharing with will see all your photos and get a reminder to add theirs too. Your sharing activities are collated in the app's new Sharing tab.
This feature will be rolling out on Android, iOS and web in the coming weeks.
Automatically curated albumsGoogle Photos can now automatically share relevant photos with specific people. Say you took a bunch of photos of your kids: Photos may offer to automatically share them with your wife.
Called Shared Libraries, it lets you give a person access to your full photo library.
Don't worry, you can easily choose to limit sharing by having the app include just the photos of certain people or the images taken from a certain date forward. When the other person shares their library with you, you can automatically save their photos to your own library.
Shared Libraries will be rolling out on iOS, Android and web in the coming weeks.
Photo BooksLike with Apple Photos or services like Shutterfly, you can now order a printed coffee table book comprised of your best photographs without ever leaving the app. Simply select the images you'd like to fill your album with and Google's machine learning algorithm will pick the best shots, removing duplicates and poor quality images.
When placing your order, choose between a high-quality twenty-page softcover book for ten bucks a piece or a hardcover variant for twice as much. Your photo book will be delivered to that special person in your life in the mail.
This feature is rolling out today in the US on web, and on Android and iOS next week.
“We’ll bring photo books to more countries soon,” said the search giant.
Another feature that's coming soon to Photos: personalized suggestions for photo books (i.e. your trip to the Grand Canyon, time with family during the holidays, your puppy and so forth). Machine learning powers features in other Google apps, including smart replies in Gmail for iOS and the newly launched Assistant for iPhone app.
Grab Google Photos for free from App Store.
Google on Wednesday launched an updated version of the mobile Gmail app for iOS and Android, bringing out a handy new Smart Reply feature based on the company's machine learning technology. Like with canned responses in Apple's own Messages app, Gmail analyzes the contents of your emails to provide up to three canned responses based on what it thinks the sender is asking in their original message.
Smart Replies may include simple “Yes” and “No” responses. If the sender is asking whether to meet on Wednesday or Friday, Gmail may provide a bit more complex replies such as “Let's do Wednesday”, “Friday works for me” or “Either day works for me”.
Once you’ve selected one, you can send it immediately or edit your response starting with the Smart Reply text. By utilizing machine learning, the Smart Reply feature produces better responses the more you use it. “If you're more of a 'thanks!' than a 'thanks.' person, we'll suggest the response that's, well, more you,” says Google.
To learn about the smarts behind Smart Reply, check out the Google Research Blog.
Smart Reply will roll out globally in English first, with Spanish following in the coming weeks. Additional languages for Smart Replies will be added soon, Google has promised.
According to the search monster, the machine learning-assisted Smart Reply feature already drives twelve percent of replies in its Inbox email app.
Aside from Smart Replies in the Gmail app, today's keynote address at Google's annual I/O conference for developers saw the release of the official Google Assistant app for iOS.
Gmail for iOS is available at no charge from App Store.
The rumors were true: the search giant Google today released a standalone Assistant app for iPhone to take on Siri. Available at no charge on App Store, it features a blend of the chat style functionality found in in the Google Allo version of Assistant and the voice-controlled version found on Android.
It even lets you call friends on Google Home or out on the town with your iPhone.
“Whether you need a reminder to pick up milk, help finding your travel photos or need to make a dinner reservation, your Assistant is ready to help,” says the company.
To get started with Assistant, press the microphone icon or start typing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ9MBYfu_0A
“And for when you want to see what you’ve previously asked, we’ll also soon add history within your conversation,” notes Google. And with an upcoming firmware update for Google Home, customers will be able to put responses to queries from Home's Assistant on a supported display, including your iPhone and even your TV (with Chromecast).
Apple users can use Assistant's chatbot-like capabilities as well as all of its interactive features without having to purchase Google's Pixel smartphone or another Android smartphone.
Here are a few things Assistant can help you with:
Make quick phone calls (“Call Mom”) Send text messages (“Text my bestie”) Send emails (“Email my boss the latest TPS report”) Set reminders (“Remind me to buy a birthday gift for Sarah”) Set calendar events (“Set a calendar event for dinner with Charlie tomorrow from 7-9”) Play music (“Play Jazz music on YouTube”) Navigate to places (“Get me directions home”) Ask it anything (“Will I need an umbrella today?”)Google has promised to enhance Assistant with new features, including:
New chatbot abilities Integration with Google Lens technologyGoogle Lens will give Assistant for iPhone and Android some pretty cool camera capabilities with a little help from advanced artificial intelligence features. You'll be able to, for example, easily identify an object by pointing your phone's camera at it.
The company even demonstrated how Lens technology will permit Assistant users to snap up a photograph of a business's sign to quickly pull up useful information such as reviews, menu items, friend check-ins and other relevant data.
And in yet another example, Google demoed how Assistant could help Android users connect to a Wi-Fi network simply by taking a picture of a sticker on a router.
“If you see a marquee for your favorite band, you can hold up your Assistant, tap the Lens icon and get information on the band, tickets and more,“ said the firm.
Plus, starting today developers can build conversational apps for the Google Assistant on phones. In other words, soon you’ll be able to not only get help and answers from Google, but also from third party services.
The AI-powered helper will be rolling out to eligible Android phones in Brazilian Portuguese, French, German and Japanese, Google said. By the end of the year, Assistant will include additional language support for Italian, Korean and Spanish.
The company has more than 70 smart home partners supporting Assistant across Google Home, Android phones and iPhone, including August locks, TP-Link, Honeywell, Logitech and LG.
Assistant is already available on more than 100 million devices, said Google.
Grab Google Assistant for iOS for free via App Store.
The app requires an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch with iOS 9.1 or later.
Secure instant messaging service Telegram today launched voice calls in its desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux nearly two months after implementing the voice-calling feature in Telegram Messenger for iPhone and iPad.
To make sure Telegram calls are the best in terms of quality, speed and security, the app uses artificial intelligence to update its neural network after each call about things such as network speed, ping times, packet loss percentage and other factors that influence the quality of your VoIP calls.
Based on gathered data, the app optimizes dozens of parameters to improve the quality of future calls on the given device and network. By default, Telegram calls are lightweight.
https://twitter.com/telegram/status/864543129847955457
If there's a change in your connection during the call, the app will make necessary adjustments.
For instance, Telegram may boost your sound quality on stable Wi-Fi connection or use less data if your Wi-Fi or cellular coverage is spotty at best.
Whenever possible, your calls will go over a peer-to-peer connection using the best audio codecs to save traffic while providing “crystal-clear quality.” When a peer-to-peer connection cannot be established, the app will use the closest server to you.
Telegram has its own distributed infrastructure all over the world to ensure the fastest possible delivery of your texts and seamless voice calling experience. As mentioned, VoIP calls on Telegram use end-to-end encryption, just like the app's Secret Chats feature, to prevent eavesdropping.
For voice calls, however, they've improved the key exchange mechanism. “To make sure your call is 100 percent secure, you and your recipient just need to compare four emoji”, said the team.
Bottom line: the quality of Telegram calls will further improve as you and others use them, thanks to the built-in machine learning. And with group calling, video calling and screen sharing apparently on the team's to-do list, Telegram is bound to become a capable Skype alternative.
As soon as VoIP calls are enabled for your country, a phone icon will appear on every profile page in Telegram Desktop.
Telegram for iOS is available free via App Store.
Telegram Desktop can be downloaded from Mac App Store or through the official website.
In this tutorial, we will show you how to change the default notification sound for all chats or choose different sounds for each of your chats in the Viber app on your iPhone or iPad.
Todoist, the popular cross-platform app for organizing work and errands, is launching a deep two-way integration between it and Google Calendar that lets the app directly pull information from Google Calendar and vice versa. In addition, the app now supports iOS's system-wide Dynamic Type feature and you can now mark individual notifications as read or unread.
Todoist + Google Calendar = winning comboWith a two-way sync between Todoist and Google Calendar, you can visualize, organize and prioritize your tasks from inside your calendar, with any changes made in Google Calendar being instantly reflected back in Todoist and vice versa.
To connect Todoist with Google Calendar, sign into the Todoist web app, click on the gear icon in the upper-right corner and choose Settings from the popup menu. Navigate to the Integrations tab and click Connect next to Google Calendar.
After signing into your Google Account, you’ll be asked which calendar you want your tasks added to, whether you'd like to sync your entire Todoist account or just a specific project, which Todoist project you want new Google Calendar tasks added to, a default event duration for new Todoist tasks in Google Calendar and whether or not you want to sync tasks with a due date but no time.
Once you authorize the integration, any tasks with a due date and/or time in Todoist will automatically be added to a Google calendar of your choosing (recurring tasks will create multiple events) The two-way sync allows you to create events in Google Calendar within Todoist, knowing they'll be automatically added to the Todoist project of your choosing.
All tasks created from Google Calendar have a default @gcal label, but you can change the label by editing the integration after you’ve connected the apps. You can even choose to only sync tasks from a specific project, if you'd like.
On the iPhone and iPad side, Todoist now supports Dynamic Type, a feature that makes it easy to adjust the font size in apps that support this feature. To make words in Todoist bigger or smaller, simply update to the latest version of the app on App Store and set your preferred text size but dragging the slider in Settings → Display & Brightness → Text Size.
To make sure you don’t miss any important updates in shared projects, Todoist for iOS now allows collaborators to mark individual notifications as read or unread.
As for Todoist for Mac, the app's design was refreshed yesterday to make it feel more at home on your Mac, including extending the theme color all the way to the top.
The smart-task Quick Add action has been overhauled as well. Faster than ever before, it now includes a shortcut to assign a task to someone else (just type “+” into the task name field to pull up a list of collaborators).
Todoist for iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch is a free download from App Store.
Todoist for Mac is available free via Mac App Store.
Google's annual conference for developers is kicking off today with an opening State of the Union-like keynote address by CEO Sundar Pichai. Will be providing remote coverage of the most important announcements from the event as they happen.
That said, you can tune in to watch a live-stream of the keynote if you'd like.
The keynote address is scheduled to kick off today at 10am Pacific Time / 1pm Eastern Time. Here's how you can stream the event live on your iPhone, iPad, Mac and other devices.
When does Google I/O keynote start?As mentioned before, the three-day conference is scheduled to kick off with a keynote today, May 17, at 10am Pacific Standard Time / 11am Mountain Standard Time / 12pm Central Time / 1pm Eastern Standard Time.
If you’re watching the keynote from the United Kingdom, Beijing, Europe or elsewhere, here’s what times the event goes down in some of the major cities around the world:
London, United Kingdom—Wednesday, May 17 at 6pm Paris, France—Wednesday, May 17 at 7pm Berlin, Germany—Wednesday, May 17 at 7pm Central Europe—Wednesday, May 17 at 7pm Moscow, Russia—Wednesday, May 17 at 8pm Eastern Europe—Wednesday, May 17 at 8pm New Delhi, India—Wednesday, May 17 at 10:30pm Beijing, China—Thursday, May 18 at 1am Tokyo, Japan—Thursday, May 18 at 2am Sydney, Australia—Thursday, May 18 at 3am Auckland, New Zealand—Thursday, May 18 at 6amIf you're located overseas, but your country isn’t on the list, simply use an online timezone service to determine what time 10am PST is in your country or ask Siri what time it is in Cupertino to figure out how long before the keynote starts.
How to live-stream Google I/O 2017 keynoteThe main Google I/O keynote, featuring CEO Sundar Pichai, as well as the 150 other talks streaming from the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View this week, will be hosted on Google's Developers channel on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2VF8tmLFHw
The live-stream YouTube video is embedded above.
If Google provides a 360-degree video of the keynote address, like it did last year, we'll be making sure to update the post with the video URL.
Will you be tuning in to Google I/O?
If so, which potential announcements are you looking forward to the most?
Leave a comment below to let us know!
Announced last month, a series of revamped educational sessions, headlined as “Today at Apple”, launched on Wednesday at Apple's brick-and-mortar stores globally, with more than 4,000 classes being offered each day this week. The new sessions have been available at Apple Union Square since the store opened.
“Introducing Today at Apple—inspiring and educational free sessions happening every day at Apple,” said the iPhone maker, adding that “inspiration is now in session”. While content varies from one store to another, the 495 Apple Stores around the world are expected to offer "Photo Walks" and "Kids Hour" sessions by May 20.
Most sessions are an hour in length. In recognition of Global Accessibility Awareness Day, the Cupertino giant is hosting a bunch of accessibility-related sessions at its stores as well.
The company shared this promo video to mark the launch of “Today at Apple”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-1GPznHrrM
As mentioned, these hands-on educational sessions are available starting today in all company-owned retail stores in the US and around the world. The classes range in topics from photo and video to music, coding, art and design and more.
In select cities, “Today at Apple” hands-on classes will be led by world-class artists, photographers and musicians, teaching sessions from basics and how-to lessons to professional-level programs.
To mark Global Accessibility Awareness Day, Apple shared this morning some inspiring videos showcasing how people with different disabilities are using assistive features built into iPhone, iPad and Mac to make their lives easier.
Happy Global Accessibility Awareness Day, everyone!
To mark the occasion Apple is showcasing a series of more than half a dozen inspiring videos of some of its users with different disabilities, who can be seen leveraging the powerful assistive technologies built into macOS and iOS to make their lives easier.
The clips, first spotted by Jim Dalrymple of The Loop, demonstrate real-world usage of iOS and macOS accessibility features by the people who can’t move, talk, see or hear. The company is also hosting a bunch of accessibility-related sessions in its stores around the world.
Carlos VasquezCarlos is the lead singer, drummer and PR manager for his metal band Distartica. Using VoiceOver, with Screen Curtain on iPhone, he can hail a ride, take a photo and get the word out about his band’s album release while keeping his screen entirely black.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHAO_kj0qcA
Ian MackayIan is an outdoor and birding enthusiast. With Siri on iPhone, he can play a bird call or chat with a friend via FaceTime, and with Switch Control he is able to capture the perfect waterfall photo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWNKM8V98cg
Meera PhillipsMeera is a teenager who loves soccer and jokes. She uses TouchChat on iPad to talk with her friends and family, and deliver the occasional one-liner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d6zKINudi0
Andrea DalzellAndrea is a nursing student and advocate for the disabled community. She uses Apple Watch to record wheelchair-specific workouts and share her victories with friends.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoEUsUWihsM
Patrick LafayettePatrick is a DJ and producer with a passion for music and excellent food. With VoiceOver, he has the freedom to express himself in his home studio with Logic Pro X and in the kitchen with TapTapSee.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whioDJ8doYA
Shane RakowskiShane is a middle school band and choir director who uses Made for iPhone hearing aids in her classroom so she can hear every note.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mswxzXlhivQ
Todd StabelfeldtTodd is the CEO of a technology consulting company and a prominent member of the quadriplegic community. With Siri, Switch Control, and the Home app, he can open his front door, adjust the lights in his house, and queue up a party playlist.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PoE9tHg_P0
Apple provided these links for the technologies and apps featured in the videos:
Accessibility on Apple Watch VoiceOver on macOS Switch Control “Made for iPhone” hearing aids HomeKit-enabled products Schlage Sense Smart Deadbolt TapTapSee for iPhone TouchChat for iPhone iBird for iPhone Logic Pro X for Mac Essential Elements for PadToday, May 18, marks the sixth Global Accessibility Awareness Day.
According to the official Global Accessibility Awareness Day website, the purpose of the initiative is to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital access and inclusion of people with different disabilities.